Sunny Notes: 03.25.26 - Exploring Our Roots
Last November, we devoted a Sunday service to our Unitarian root tradition. Following that service, someone approached me and asked, "What about Universalism?" I was happy to oblige, and this past Sunday, on March 22, we gave Universalism some attention.
Exploring the history of our root traditions is important. As minister and professor of UU history, David Bumbaugh writes in Unitarian Universalism: A Narrative History: "Unitarian Universalism is a peculiar religious tradition in that what binds us is not so much a shared theology, or even a shared response to the experience of the sacred, as it is a shared history. We are one people because of our inchoate understanding of the journey through time which we share."
Beyond a sense of shared history, however, our root traditions are inspiring. Especially when the present is so chaotic and challenging, it is good to know, to be reminded, that we are part of a much larger movement that spans centuries, and that our ancestors have weathered similar storms, standing up for freedom and justice and equality. Universalist belief was declared heretical by a local church council in 544CE...John Murray, often considered the father of American Universalism, had rocks thrown at him in the pulpit in the mid-1700s, such was the opposition to his message of a loving God and universal salvation for all...and yet, Universalism went on to become the 5th largest denomination in the country in the mid-1800s, with an incredibly progressive social agenda that greatly impacted reform movements.
In this current moment, as we watch events in this country and in our world unfold, we who share values like justice, equity, transformation, pluralism, interdependence, and generosity, and we who put Love at the center—we may feel pretty discouraged. But take heart and remember our Universalist forebears who refused to let go of their belief in “cosmic love as the creative force and human divine love as the law of life.” (Rev. Albert Q. Perry, "The Uniqueness of Universalism") May we modern-day UUs live into their legacy of stubborn persistence and the vision of a better, more loving world where all are included.
— Sunny, minister